


inevitable

by AnnaofAza



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - All Media Types, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré
Genre: (in some ways), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Doomed Timelines, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 18:49:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18531004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaofAza/pseuds/AnnaofAza
Summary: Jim and Bill meet.What happens next?If you want a happy ending, try A.





	inevitable

Jim and Bill meet.

What happens next?

If you want a happy ending, try A.

A.

Jim and Bill meet in Oxford in 1937 at a debate club. From across the room, their eyes meet, and Bill walks through the crowd after the event and introduces himself.

They form a fast and close friendship that develops into something more that can’t quite be pinned down by any teachers or peers, though there is enough talk. Jim helps Bill with his disastrous art exhibitions and throws away the bad reviews, refines Bill’s French in idle late-night sessions, and follows Bill to more debates. In return, Bill gets his knees muddy during cricket matches, makes sure Jim is always included in activities with his circle of friends, and tries to sketch Jim when he sits still for once. After graduating with first-class degrees, Jim teaches French to rowdy but well-meaning boys, and Bill trains for and eventually becomes Lord Haydon, but still paints on the side. They have stimulating political debates, long dinners by the fire, and a small group of friends. They eventually retire and with that time, they travel the world together with their multiple languages before settling somewhere quiet and sleepy.

Eventually, they die. This is the end of the story.

B.

However, in this world, there is a war, and those passionate but meaningless debate turn into choosing sides. Jim and Bill are at first on Britain’s, then Britain’s power waxes and wanes, so Bill transfers his loyalties to Russia. Jim and Bill become separated, no longer inseparable. Jim turns a blind eye to Bill’s string of lovers. Blind, blind, blind. He still thinks Bill is his England. He still thinks Bill is his. 

But a lie is always uncovered, and with a lie comes some form of attempting to find the truth. There is British and American and allied blood on Bill’s hands now, not flecks of wayward paint. A different canvas suits Bill now, but with his name unsigned.

Jim finds this out and breaks Bill’s neck on a quiet night at Sarratt. Jim lives longer—decades, even—but eventually dies, alone in a rickety trailer and cradling a vodka bottle. 

A is a distant dream.

C.

Jim finds out about Testify, earlier. Before everything, or perhaps shortly after. 

Regardless, everything goes back to B.

D.

Jim finds out about Testify again, but this time, he lets Bill go. A is a distant dream still, but a possibility.

There’s a merry chase across the globe, in different cities, as walls crumble and rise and crumble again. There are letters, postcards, codes, scratches on pavement, notes slipping into pockets. Eventually, the internet comes along, and there are more ways, some dangerous and prone to more eyes than before, but they were always clever.

The need to see each other, to love, to try again changes loyalties once more. Bill decides to leave the battle behind, at last, and they find someplace—not in England, not in Russia, and certainly not in America. They live out the rest of their days in quiet anonymity, which isn’t as hard as it sounds, but always on the run. Always ready to rip apart their home and start fresh. But that doesn’t matter. They have each other—not a country, not an organization—but just each other. Their other halves.

E.

Yes, D happens, but Bill defects again.

Again, B.

If you think you can fix this, if Bill confesses, if Testify falls apart, if, if if…you'll still end up with B, a saga of a broken friendship—relationship—as Britain’s power in the world. Nostalgia turned to hatred and powerlessness—symbolism, side-by-side, like a mirror. Nostalgia for what might have been, what once was—but no longer.

With nostalgia, however, there’s no looking at the future. Rose-colored lenses, fooling both into sentimentality and blindness and weakness.  

But let's try again. 

Jim and Bill meet.

What happens next?

**Author's Note:**

> This is very much based off of Margaret Atwood's "Happy Endings." (Dear Ms. Atwood, please don't sue me. I love your works.)


End file.
